Unpredictable and electric, Fox Maxy’s films often blend multiple media streams into reflections on landscape, identity, and belonging. The recent Guts and Glitz collects 10 years’ worth of footage culled from personal documentaries and pop-culture debris, among other sources, coalescing into an inimitable collage about a young woman named G.G. contending with abuse and small-town gossip.
Guts and Glitz quickly establishes its hypnotic rhythm within its first few minutes using fast-paced editing that invokes the patterns of social media scrolling. It’s an approach Maxy developed carefully over several years working across design and advertising, questioning and experimenting how media is produced and consumed in the internet age.
“The cinematic language of Guts and Glitz was forged across more than a decade of multimedia practice. Embracing the accessibility of modern cameras and the fast-paced nature of social media scrolling, the production involved meticulous layering. By treating these disparate media artifacts as physical building blocks, the assembly of the film structurally mirrors the very themes of trauma and rebuilding that G.G. experiences on screen.” FOX MAXY
Maxy considers filmmaking a way to “transfer the weight of negative feelings off my shoulders and into an art piece.” Guts and Glitz’s collage framework is meant to allow “audiences to witness how life regenerates through sheer proximity” rather than view “devastation as a dead end.” What is experienced is a reclamation of all the noise, trauma, and expectations the film’s central character is facing — a whirlwind act of resistance.
Fox Maxy is a San Diego-based visual artist who makes films that blur the boundaries between fiction, memory, and lived experience. In short films like San Diego and Maat Means Land, she has explored colonialism and indigeneity as it relates to Californian history. Her debut feature Gush premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Text written by Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer. Special thanks to Fox Maxy and The Odds Art.